Cleaning Silver Jewellery and coins

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Pushingtin

Chris
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It is pretty much an electrolysis setup but without the need for electricity or battery power.

Put tin foil in a bowl, add hot water, add some washing soda (a.k.a Soda Ash BUT NOT Caustic Soda as that will eat away your silver). You will see it bubbling away, then drop in your item and make sure it touches the tin foil in order for the "electrolysis" to work. Leave for a few minutes then take out, most tarnish gone but still looks a bit scruffy, so then I polish with Silvo or some sort of silver polish, then dry off with dry cloth. Thats it. PS - Try at your own risk.
 
By tinfoil I presume you mean aluminium foil- you can do the same by just using an aluminium saucepan.
 
I tried it the other day with a 50% success rate, the toasty silvers were still a bit toasty at the end, but the silvers that looked like they held the potential of coming out of it fairly well did just that. I simmered them for 10 minute turns, with some getting at least 4 x that, although the good ones still seemed to retain some sort of slight blackness in little areas that moved around on them without letting go upon cleaning off with detergent at the end of it all, so I just gave up on that at that time, next time I may use that bit of silvo on a few of them at the end of it all just to see how it goes with all that, just to compare one time with another,... that way you seem to get a more realistic understanding of what you've done and what ended up happening based upon experience, that allows you to adjust what you'll do on another occasion(add infinitum) until you reach a good enough result that pleases you enough to become your mottos operando,.. I hope I said all that correctly, enough.
 
My missus has been using this method for years - she includes the following instructions with every piece of silver jewellery she makes & sells :-

"To clean Silver, line the bottom of a saucepan with aluminium foil (or use an aluminium saucepan) and warm 500ml of water with 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of Soda. Immerse jewellery thoroughly. Rinse well and dry on a towel."

This also works well to remove tarnish on EPNS and large items such as silver cups, goblets vases etc
 
Good info thanks dughug,.. nice to see the quantities, I will try that with my next silver wrestled from mother Earth.
Silver.
Dughug said:
My missus has been using this method for years - she includes the following instructions with every piece of silver jewellery she makes & sells :-

"To clean Silver, line the bottom of a saucepan with aluminium foil (or use an aluminium saucepan) and warm 500ml of water with 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of Soda. Immerse jewellery thoroughly. Rinse well and dry on a towel."

This also works well to remove tarnish on EPNS and large items such as silver cups, goblets vases etc
 
Obtain a small chocolate milk, drink it.
wash out your carton, then place just under half full with water.
add 2 table spoons of table salt, then rip up aluminum foil (lots of)
into small bits, place 1 silver coin to be cleaned in to the carton and shake.
for 5 min, then take out your silver and with a bit of baking soda rub.
then wash your silver coin, (the baking soda off) and repeat the process
till clean.
 
I tried soaking the modern silvers 50c 20c etc in white vinegar ...soaked them for a few days then cleaned them in water with a few drops of washing up detergent using a stainless steel scourer ...came up very clean.... some of the real dirty ones needed a couple more days in the vinegar...
 

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